John Patterson stuck to his ‘rotation’ policy for the A team’s second game of the Indoor season. Nick Richardson was unavailable, and Paul Michel was dropped for Mark Le Roux, although reports today suggest Paul ruled himself out with man-swine-flu. Pats won the toss and elected to field first, perhaps a good decision seeing the kids only had 5 players, and that included an injured Ben Beeley, and Juicy Meaton.
Le Roux and Bouchard opened the bowling and restricted the opening batsman very well in the first 4 overs. Then Naylor and Pats came on and continued to keep the scoring down with tight bowling. The score after 10 overs was 71-1, and Walkovers would have hoped to keep the score below 90 at the most. However the last two overs, from English and Le Roux, went for 15 and 22 respectively, giving the 5-kids team a score of 108-3. Co-commentator for the game, Jake Patel, criticised the bowling changes “why take someone off when they’re bowling well? Le Roux and Bouch should have carried on at the beginning.” Well that’s your opinion Jake, but Walkovers were tight in the field, and misfielding for two runs.
Bowling figures
Le Roux 3 – 37 – 1
Bouchard 2 – 14 – 0
Naylor 3 – 14 – 0
Patterson 3 – 30 – 1
English 1 – 15 – 1
Catches – Patterson 1, Naylor 1 Drops – none
Walkovers came out to bat looking confident, with gaps in the field, runs were there to be taken at ease. There was confusion in the commentary box, where Patel reported they only needed 81 to win, so the 6 strong crowd of past and present B Team players were hoping for an early night. Only Simon Pugsley, who was reporting for BBC Jersey, realised they needed 109 to win, but failed to say anything until the 11th over. Anyway, Bouch and Naylor opened the batting, and opened it slowly. When Naylor went for 6, star batsman Mark Roche came to the crease, and the crowd were expecting him to knock it into the gaps, which he did, but at a tortoise rate. The crowd were at this stage thinking they only needed 81 runs due to their slow rate. When Bouch retired on 25 in the 8th over, Boom Boom Le Roux came to the crease, but got run out shortly after on 3. English came and went for 2 runs, leaving Pats and Bouch at the crease looking to hit the winning runs with the score on 77... but hang on... they’re still batting and the score is past 81... what’s going on Jake... How many do they need... confusion, controversy, and now realisation that the A team have royally ballsed this up!! Bouch got bowled leg stump in an effort to flick another one to the leg side, leaving Pats stranded, and needing 21 off the last over. Despite a valiant effort, Walkovers fell 7 runs short.
Batting
Bouchard 31 Bowled (leg stump)
Naylor 6 caught
Roche 22 Bowled
Le Roux 3 run out
English 2 LBW
Patterson 25*
To make matters worse, young Juicy Meaton bowled well, claiming 2 wickets. Walkovers A, like the B, have played 2 and lost 2. However both games they could and should have won, unlike the B Team who claim they are still on a ‘learning curve’, despite playing the indoor game for 4 years! John Patterson after the game claimed it was a bad loss, “We shouldn’t lose to 5 players, we were never up with the rate, and that was a bad loss.” This reporter however prefers opening batsman’s Andrew Bouchard summary “We *ucked that up”!
Reporting from his sick bed, this is Paul Michel